


Dreamwalker

by yeou_bi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Coma, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Mild Gore, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 11:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30105165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeou_bi/pseuds/yeou_bi
Summary: "Don't tell anyone you meet in a dream your real name!""If you're in someone's dream, you're at their very core. In their dreams you see things you're not supposed to see, and you learn more about them than they ever wanted you to know."Even so, Kai has to enter dreams.Because Chanyeol got lost, when they were too reckless.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai & Park Chanyeol





	Dreamwalker

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this outside AO3 in 2014, so if it feels familiar, that's probably why.  
> It also technically was a multichapter fic but I'm uploading in one piece.
> 
> And no, I totally didn't know how to use commas.

## paper sky

The world around Kai was made of bright paper with clean edges. Folded cranes flew around the sky, people with blank faces walked the spotless streets into an empty horizon. The only sound to be heard was the soft rustling of paper, like a still ocean.  
  
He himself stuck out on his relative colorfulness and his natural unevenness. If he wanted to assimilate, he would have to become like a blank page, and he somehow doubted that he was capable of that.  
  
"Who are you?" a voice asked and he turned around to be met with a familiar face. It was the exact boy he had seen in the pictures, a shifting mayhem of photographed moments that had long passed. It looked comical, the way his body was normal and human, while his face was like a bad cut-out. His haircuts, his facial expressions, everything jumped from one extreme to the next.  
The boy probably only remembered his face from pictures, so he couldn't keep a fixed shape in his mind. Those parts of his body he could see himself looked accurate, only his face was a blur.  
  
"Why don't you look like the others?" the boy asked in irritation when Kai didn't reply. He looked at two paper figures walking by, as if to assure himself that everything else in his world was still in order.  
  
Kai shrugged. "Well, I'm not part of your memory, that's why. I don't belong here."  
  
The boy's face froze and showed just one single picture. There probably weren't so many pictures of him frowning. "How did you get here?"  
  
"Well," he said and thought about it for a second. The 'how' was something he wasn't so sure of himself. To enter people's minds was like breathing and talking to him, things he just somehow learned to do, although he never consciously made the decision to. He walked into dreams the way he walked into houses. He just did. There was no manual, no way to explain it.  
"That's not really important actually. I'm not here to stay," he finally said. "I have a message for you."  
  
"A message?" the boy asked and sounded confused. It must have been ages since he last heard anything from the world outside. His self in his mind still looked like a teenager, although the real him had long grown into an adult. He probably even thought that Kai was older than him  
  
"Yeah," Kai nodded. "A message from your father," he managed to say, before a tearing noise interrupted him. The ground was ripped into half, and a couple of houses dropped into a white abyss. He didn't flinch, simply because he was already much too used to things like that. It had taken him a while but he knew that an average mind couldn't hurt him.  
  
"I'm not going back," the boy hissed, as the horizon began to crumble.  
  
"I'm not asking you to," Kai said and avoided a swarm of folded birds that crashed down the sky in oddly distorted shapes. "As I said, I'm just here to tell you something he wants you to know." His payment wasn't enough to deal with ridiculous outbursts like that. The boy's mind was clear and straight-forward, so it certainly wasn't among the worst he had seen, but it still depressed him. It wasn't natural, as if the boy forced himself to have nothing but sterile thoughts.  
  
"Your mother passed away last month," Kai said.  
  
And something changed.  
  
Words started to spread across the paper, words written in black ink that slowly cut wounds into the clean spaces.  
Kai couldn't make out most of them. Although he understood foreigners in their dreams, he couldn't read their languages. It always puzzled him, but there rarely were any major inconveniences. It didn't matter what the boy wrote, his pain came across well enough.  
  
"You're lying," the boy yelled as his face fell apart into mismatching shreds. Ink started to drip on his shoulders and darkened the sky.  
  
"If that's what you think, you should probably take a look yourself," Kai said as he left the world that changed from eternal white into eternal black.  
  
  
Outside he was taken aback by the bright daylight and had to blink.  
  
The old man looked at him and spoke to him in that language he couldn't make sense of in the real world.  
"Did you meet him?" his secretary translated. "Was he well? What did he say? Is he going to come back?"  
  
Kai shrugged. "No idea, but I did tell him about his mother. Whatever he does from now on, is his decision."  
He looked at the comatose figure of the boy who had changed into a young adult.  
  
\---  
  
Luhan, the only son of a Chinese plutocrat, tried to commit suicide by jumping off one of the buildings owned by his father when he was sixteen.  
He didn't die, but he didn't really live either, and fell into a coma, as if he himself didn't have the will to go on. Five years had passed since then.  
  
"I heard it's because his father tried to kill his mother," the secretary explained in a hushed voice when they were on their way to the hospital. She clearly was afraid of her employer. "He had many affairs and didn't even deny it. The boy then confronted his father, who got angry. He took it out on his wife, and she fell down the stairs. She lost his mind after that, and had to be taken into a mental institution."  
  
"And he didn't go to prison?" Kai asked, although he was only mildly interested. His job was to pass messages and to help people make sense of their dreams. After all the things he had witnessed, he had stopped caring about personal fates.  
  
"It was proven to have been an accident," the secretaty said, and obviously seemed to think of it as a lie. "But he regrets it. I mean, how could he not? His wife and his son were both alive, though not really. And now she died, and all he has left is a child who refuses to wake up."  
  
Kai sighed. There was no way he could help someone like that. He was neither a saint, nor a psychologist.  
  
But there was something about comatose patients that intrigued him. If they had been asleep over such an extended períod of time, chances were high that someone else could have passed through their dreams.  
  
In the end it was always that tiny hope that allowed him to go on.  
  
\---  
  
"You're not going to come back, are you?" he asked as he jumped over a mount of paper bits. Luhan's world had crumbled. The only things left were a vast area of shreds and a sky with ink stains.  
  
Luhan's face had disappeared completely. His body was still the same, but his head had turned into a paper ball with a doodled grimace. It looked even sadder than before, although he barely had an expression.  
  
"Is she really dead?" Luhan asked and turned his head into Kai's direction.  
  
"I guess," Kai said. "I didn't exactly confirm it. Your father only paid me to tell you."  
  
Luhan sighed and hunched his shoulders. The paper around him stirred, although there was no wind, and the ink stains in the sky began to spread again.  
"Well, you did tell me," he meekly said. "So why are you still here?"  
  
He hesitated for a moment, before he said, "There's someone I'm looking for."  
  
Luhan moved his head and the grimace in his crumbled face shifted in an odd way, almost like a grin. "Don't you think this is the wrong place?" he sneered. "Even I know that there's no one but me here."  
  
Kai already had his answer. He knew the moment he met Luhan who was surprised to see him, and it was even more obvious now. But he couldn't just give up. To wander through dreams was the only chance he had.  
"Did you ever notice anything strange here?" he asked. "Anything you were pretty sure wasn't created by your own mind?"  
  
Luhan laughed again. "Apart from you, you mean?"  
And then he paused.  
"There are more people like you?"  
  
It was no use.  
  
There was no point in him staying any longer.  
  
But before he left, he turned to Luhan once more.  
"Your father is living pretty well, you know," he said. "Don't you think it would be easier to punish him face-to-face?"  
  
He didn't wait to see Luhan's reaction, because it had nothing to do with him anyway. The last thing he heard was the noise of ripping paper.  
  
  
  
Kai could enter dreams.  
  
He didn't do it because he enjoyed it or because he couldn't help it. It made him uncomfortable to be in strangers' minds, but he was always in full control. There was no thrill, no fun, nothing that would have made it less disturbing.  
  
And yet he constantly entered dreams.  
  
Because it paid well.  
  
Because he had a talent he could make use of.  
  
  
Because he was looking for someone he had lost in a dream.

## phoenix.one

> \----original

"Oh, come on, Kim Jongin," Chanyeol had pleaded. "Don't act like a girl. What could possibly happen? It's just a dream. It can't hurt you."

He had been wrong, because he hadn't known.

Dreams were dangerous for those who didn't follow the rules.

Chanyeol had never understood that.

>   
>  \----copy

"What's up, Kai?" Chanyeol asked as he caught up to him on the school corridor.

Kai hated how he didn't even to bother to cover up that he wasn't the real him, but a shell with a monster inside. Unless Kai told him his real name out of his own free will, he wouldn't ever find out, and he knew.

He knew, and yet he threw the name 'Kai' at him like a weapon.

Because he also knew how much Kai minded.

Because it prove that he was a stranger in a familiar shape.

>   
>  \----power

"Don't tell anyone you meet in a dream your real name," Kai's grandfather had told him long before he understood how terrifying dreams could be.  
"They can use it to hurt you. Forget your real name. If you refer to yourself in your mind, think of yourself as a completely different being."

## to let go

Kai had heard about Byun Baekhyun's grandmother before, so he knew that he was supposed to be prepared. But when he was hit by a glass vase that exploded into a thousand tiny splinters the moment he entered her dream, it shocked him so much, he almost forgot that it wasn't real. He fell backwards and blood came gushing from his forehead, until he realized that he was overreacting.

"Oh, dear, you really have a talent for arriving at the worst times," Baekhyun's grandmother, a young sturdy woman in her mind, laughed and ran to him in a way that showed how little she worried about his injuries. She clearly knew that her dream couldn't hurt him.  
But then she stopped and mustered him as he slowly stood up and wiped the last pieces of glass off himself. "It's not just that you look different this time, is it?" she asked. "You're someone else entirely."

He nodded, and she frowned. "Is that silly boy not feeling well? He hasn't visited me in a while."

"He's fine," he lied. "Just busy."

Another miss.  
She was the twentieth comatose person whose dream he visited, and he still didn't have any leads. This time he couldn't even tell himself, that this person maybe just hadn't noticed any unwanted visitors.

"So you're his substitute, I assume," she said excitedly. "Are you also a friend of my boy? What has he done this time?"

To her in her lonely world, any visitor must have seemed like a blessing. She obviously wouldn't ignore or miss anyone who could bring her news from the outside world.

He took out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and showed it to her. "He's scored well in a test," he said. "So he wanted to tell you."

She looked pleased. And he left.

\---

Byun Baekhyun frowned, and looked a lot like the young version of his grandmother. Kai had heard before that some traits jumped a generation. He himself was a lot like his grandfather, and Baekhyun probably like his grandmother.

"Chanyeol, he," Baekhyun began after Kai had told him about his grandmother's well-being. "Did anything happen to him when he was, you know, over there?"  
He probably still didn't fully believe the idea of human beings who entered dreams. His grandmother had confirmed that she had given Chanyeol many information only she could have known until Baekhyun finally was convinced enough to answer.  
"Is that why he's been so strange lately?"

  
Kai didn't want to talk about it. The fact that Baekhyun was Chanyeol's friend, a friend so close he not only knew about his ability, he also realized that something was wrong, had almost made him decline his plead to act as the messenger for his grandmother. Baekhyun knew nothing, so he was of no help anyway.

But to meet Baekhyun's grandmother maybe was the chance he had been waiting for. She had been in a coma for over a year at that point. It was long enough for her to know the Chanyeol who entered dreams, and also for him to maybe think of her as a safe haven. It at least was a possibility, one slightly more plausible than Kai's previous attempts.  
So when Baekhyun, who had heard from Chanyeol that Kai was like him, approached him and asked whether he could maybe, possibly make sure that his grandmother wasn't too lonely, he hadn't even asked for money, he had just shrugged, "Yeah. Sure."

  
But Chanyeol wasn't there and now there was someone who made him talk about him instead, although he didn't want to. The more time passed, the more panicked and hopeless he felt, because Chanyeol was still lost, and he didn't even know where to look.

"Don't mind him," he said indifferently, and was about to add that Chanyeol would eventually go back to normal, but then he hesitated. Because he had no idea whether Chanyeol really would return. No matter how big Chanyeol's talent for randomly wandering through the dreams of people he didn't even know was, Kai wasn't sure whether it really was possible to keep existing in strangers' dreams without returning in-between.

For all he knew, Chanyeol could have stopped existing already. There was no way of confirming it, because dreams weren't fixed. He could be anywhere, or nowhere.

It scared him to think that he maybe wouldn't ever find him, because he was looking for the Holy Grail. He didn't want to give up, but the way things were, he just couldn't really picture them all to have a happy ending.

"If there's anything you want your grandmother to know, tell me though. I'll be your messenger from now on."

\---

Byun Baekhyun and his grandmother were divided by time and space.

"I'm really grateful that you and that silly boy are helping my grandson," Baekhyun's grandmother said as she stood in a wide field. The sky had the colour of smoke. "So I know that I have no reason to complain, but..."

A child with a kite ran by, followed by a much older version of her. They were in a memory.

"You see, I can hear them sometimes as they talk outside. They yell and they cry, but I only hear them as faint voices behind the horizon. I thought I would slowly fade away, listening to those voices. I thought that's the way I would die."

The child fell and the old woman helped him to stand up. The kite dropped from the sky like a dead bird.

"But then that silly boy came by and told me about my grandson and about how he misses me. I couldn't just disappear after that, could I? Not if he needs me."

She sighed, as she stared at the tiny grandson of her memory and the old her. When she turned away, the scenery shifted and they stood in an empty space.

"But there's nothing I can do. I won't wake up again, I know that, but I never know whether my grandson has anything he wants to consult me about. I'm grateful that you're willing to help him, but if not for the silly boy, my grandson and I wouldn't be stuck like this."

"I can stop coming if that's what you want," he said.

She frowned, but then she smiled as she shook her head. "It's hard to give up now."

\---

"Dreams are private," his grandfather had warned him before. "If you're in someone's dream, you're at their very core. In their dreams you see things you're not supposed to see, and you learn more about them than they ever wanted you to know."

He knew.

But he had no choice.

His only excuse was that he didn't actually care much about the dreams he saw. It was all just because it was his responsibility to find Park Chanyeol, that idiot he had last seen in a dream.

## phoenix.two

> \----then

They first met because of Chanyeol's bad habit of disregarding other people's privacy. One of his usual pretexts was that there surely must have been a good reason for his ability, that reason being that he was supposed to use it. Things he could do were things he was supposed to do, or so he had always liked to explain.  
That people could lie and kill and steal, too, but weren't supposed to, had never seemed to occur to him.

The truth was that Chanyeol simply enjoyed entering dreams. He wanted to pry, so he constantly came up with flimsy justifications. In a way that had actually always been the worst of his habits.

Chanyeol liked to wander dreams. The less he knew the person, the better. He liked the thrill.  
So when they met, they were strangers. The only thing that connected them was the fact that they happened to attend the same school.

It had been the summer of his first year in high school, when Kai had fallen asleep in his classroom after his last lesson. He had oddly always felt a lot more relaxed in school. At home everyone had always been much too noisy.  
That spring his second oldest sister had developped a latent dreamwalking ability, so although she couldn't counsciously use it and although their grandfather didn't see the need to take her serious, had it been especially annoying for Kai who couldn't just see her constantly barging into his dreams the moment he fell asleep, as something that just belonged into his mind. Nothing could stop his sister, so the only place where he could sleep, was a place without her.

The last things he had seen before he had finally nodded off were the orange evening sky and the surface of his uneven desk someone had doodled a helmetted superhero on.  
The first things he had seen of his dream world were the blank sky and the blank surface of his desk, dull versions of his actual surroundings. Clean, empty spaces without life, there was nothing else he wanted to see.

He had just closed his eyes once more, when someone had asked, "So, if you fall asleep in your dream, what kind of dream do you see?"

He had put his arms over his head to block out the noise, because he had frankly had it with people who interrupted his sleep.

"I mean, do you just see another classroom and another you? Does it go on forever? So does each you have to wake up before you're back in the real world?" that someone had continued.

He had sat up in annoyance.  
"If I fall asleep in my dream, I just sleep. There are no dreams in my dream. That's the point."  
He had given the intruder an irritated look, and it had only been then that he had noticed that something clearly was wrong. He was in full control over his dream world. There couldn't possibly be any voices, unless they absolutely didn't belong there.  
And that boy giving him a curious glance most definitely hadn't been part of his imagination. His school uniform had been the same, but his face had been unfamiliar.

"Don't you like to dream?" the boy had asked and had seemed very oblivious of the fact that Kai wasn't normal.

It was maybe exactly because Kai's dream hadn't seemed to be particularly special, that he hesitated. Shyness was probably the wrong word, but it had taken him a little aback that someone like him didn't notice a difference. That was maybe also the reason why his sister walked through his dreams as if it was no big deal. Despite his ability he probably just was perfectly average.

"Dreams tire me out," he had finally said, and the boy had nodded as if he understood. Kai had known that kind of behaviour. He himself had entered more than enough dreams in which people had explained the most ridiculous things to him. To them everything made sense, it was their mind after all, so he had got used to acting as if he, too, understood what they meant. For the boy it must have been the same.

The boy had looked around, probably not very impressed by Kai's mind's lack of detail and imagination, and had been about to walk out of the room, like a customer who had realized that a shop didn't sell anything he wanted. Before he had a chance to leave though, Kai had shut the door, and barred the windows.  
It had been little more than a small gesture to demonstrate that his world was exactly the way he had wanted it to be, but it had thrown the boy off balance enough for him to jerk around in surprise.

Kai had tried hard to surpress a smile at the boy's panicked expression, when he said, "This isn't a public space, you know?"

>   
>  \----now

The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the giant vinyl bag of the person who stood in front of his seat inside the crammed subway train. Various noises and the smell of sweat filled the air. It was summer again, and the train felt like a refrigerator full of barely edible food.

The first things he saw of his dream were the empty train and the blank sky outside. There were no people, no noise, no smell. He was about to close his eyes again, when someone next to him said, "Come on, Jongin, this is a train. What's the point of falling into a deep sleep here? You'll just miss your stop."

He opened his eyes in shock. He knew that voice. He knew it much too well.

But it wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

"What's wrong?" Chanyeol asked and snorted at the weird expression Kai must have given him.

His barriers didn't hold, and part of the world outside started to sink in. In the distance he heard the rumbling of the train and the chattering of the people around him. Next to him someone must have yelled something into his phone. "Don't make me tell you again. I will sue you if you don't return that money to me," he heard. At this rate he could wake up any minute.

"What the hell, Kim Jongin?" Chanyeol asked and looked around as the ghosts of the real train passengers started to appear. The man who sat in his place in the real world held a newspaper in front his chest. "I thought you were good at this."

"You're not real," Kai said and stared at his hands. They were shaking.

Chanyeol shrugged. "So?" he asked and sounded amused. "I'm not the one who summoned me. You're the one who wants me here."

How?

Why?

He was in control over this. He knew how to make sure that he wouldn't see anything in his dreams he didn't want to see.

That Chanyeol next to him wasn't the real one, he wasn't the one he lost. He also wasn't the one who had taken his place.

He was not more than a ghost, an idea Kai had made up in his mind, a virus in his system.

"Isn't 'virus' a bit of a harsh word?" Chanyeol frowned, and Kai forced himself to concentrate on the noises and the smell and the cold air of the train's air conditioning. He forced himself to wake up.

"I mean, this is totally not my fault," Chanyeol said meekly.

And Kai woke up.

## nightmare

"Don't run," he yelled and held the shoulders of the boy who shivered in fear. When he tried to cover his eyes, he grabbed his wrist and pulled it down. "And don't close your eyes! You have to look it in the eye."

The monster was massive, like a giant black mount of muscles and sweat. Spit dripped out of its open mouth that bared fangs so big, it wouldn't have taken it much effort to rip open their chests.  
But the point was that it wasn't real.

"This is all in your head," Kai said and frantically held onto the boy's shirt. "If you run, you lose."

The monster came closer. Every breath it took filled the air with a low roar.

"Look at it!"

The boy's heartbeat pounded through the dream like drums of war. It grew faster and faster.

And then he ran. He elbowed Kai away and spurted along a neverending corridor. The monster followed, always at his heels. It would never catch him, they would never get forward.

Kai sighed. He already hated the job.

\---

Sometimes he got the feeling that the world outside made even less sense than the worlds inside other people's minds. If one single person set the rules, they at least followed a single pattern. Outside everything was decided through various factors, the outcome of which sometimes was even more bizarre than any dream world.

As far as he had heard, the Chinese plutocrat's son had never woken up. He would probably forever hide in his paper world. In a way it made sense. Now that he knew that his mother wasn't there any longer, he didn't have much more reason to face reality. In his dreams everything at least was in order, as long as there weren't strangers like Kai who barged in.

His thinking Kai could understand. But his father was like a puzzle.

His wife was dead, and his son was in a coma, but the Chinese plutocrat was overjoyed to hear that his son was still there somewhere. To him that apparently was enough. He seemed sure that his son would eventually return. He called Kai their 'saviour', although Kai hadn't done more than to pass on simple messages.

He was a 'saviour' now, and word spread among other Chinese millionaires that he was a 'dream counselor', a 'healer', a 'magician'. It frankly was ridiculous.  
But his new status brought him offers and offers came with the permission to enter more dream worlds, so he couldn't decline. He needed to find Chanyeol no matter what, or else he would go crazy. He already had trouble sleeping without any kind of medication, so he couldn't waste even more time.

\----

Had he not been so desperate, he probably wouldn't have agreed to try and help Zhang Yixing. It was one thing to talk to someone's comatose family members, but the mind of someone who lived and breathed normally, but who was troubled by nightmares was something entirely different. Without a translator he couldn't even talk to Zhang Yixing unless he was asleep and in his dreams, they had too little time to go through routines. Whenever he tried to tell him what to do, the monster appeared. Every time they ran in circles, until Zhang Yixing woke up and violently pulled Kai with him.

It was annoying, and didn't bring him any closer to finding Chanyeol. But he had already accepted, so he couldn't not help.

\---

"Lay, look," he said urgently and pulled Zhang Yixing aside. He had already told him that in his dreams he was supposed to give himself a different name. Kai was fairly sure that the monster was something Zhang Yixing himself had created, but it was always best to be on the safe side. "This is your dream, so you set the rules. Nightmares are just a way for your brain to deal with things you don't want to deal with."

Zhang Yixing shifted uncomfortably. He clearly knew the scenery. They were in that very dark school building again. It was only a matter of seconds until the monster would appear. "So why do I have to deal with it now?"

Kai sighed. "Well, you obviously don't have to," he shrugged and Zhang Yixing gave him a miserable look, because he knew the direction the discussion would take. They had been over this a couple of times now. If he ran now, the monster would chase him forever. Night after night its foul breath would tickle the back of his neck as he ran.

Night after night after night.

Until the problem solved itself.

But unless they knew what the problem was, there would always be a tiny space reserved for the monster. It could stay forever, until Zhang Yixing himself died.

"So what does the school remind you of?" Kai asked helpfully, although they had been over this a couple of times now. It was Zhang Yixing's old high school. Half a year ago he had graduated. "Did anything bad happen to you here?"

Zhang Yixing gave it a thought, and a jolt went through the building. Just as expected. The school was the trigger.

There was a rumbling in the distance, and then it appeared. The monster, in all its gory brilliance.

"Okay, great," Kai said excitedly and rubbed his hands, when Zhang Yixing looked at him as if he had gone crazy. "Now look at it. It won't move, unless you start running."

Zhang Yixing flinched, and the monster took a step forward with flared nostrils and a growl coming from deep within its throat. Even Kai felt a shiver running down his spine at its sheer ugliness.

"Don't run," he said and tried to sound as calm as possible. "If you run now, we'll have to repeat this over and over again. I won't stay forever, so if you don't solve this yourself, no one will."

Zhang Yixing gave him a pleading glance, and he nodded at the monster. There was no use looking at him now. He couldn't fight other people's minds, no matter how easy a solution that would have been.

"Don't run," he yelled, when Zhang Yixing's face grew pale again. He gulped, and moved backwards a little.  
The monster bared its teeth.  
And Zhang Yixing dashed.

It was tiring.

"Why would you even be afraid of your own mind?" Kai muttered and rubbed his eyes, when he noticed a weird sensation. Something felt wrong.

He still saw Zhang Yixing being chased by the monster.

They would wake up any minute.

But something was different from all the previous dreams.

"I don't get it either," Chanyeol said and shook his head. "But I mean, aren't you a bit of a hypocrite? Unlike him you actually know how dreams work, and you still run from your nightmare."

Chanyeol pulled a face, when Kai stared at him in horror.

"Although I'm honestly not sure why I'm even considered as a nightmare."

Zhang Yixing was still stuck in his dream, when Kai abandoned him and woke up.

\---

"This is my last attempt," he said when they stood in the empty school corridor. "If you don't do anything about the monster now, I won't be able to help you any further. This is my limit."

Zhang Yixing frowned at him, but didn't really seem to take him serious. He was tense, as he usually was whenever the arrival of the monster came closer.

"You have trouble sleeping at night, don't you?" Kai asked to get his full attention. "But the monster isn't always there, is it? You only saw it so often lately, because I forced you to. But now imagine it to be there every single time you fall asleep. Would you like that?"

Zhang Yixing shivered, and the familiar growl could be heard in the distance.

"Okay, look," Kai said urgently and nodded towards a corner. "Do you see that guy over there?"

Zhang Yixing turned his head, and looked puzzled. He of course didn't know Chanyeol, because he wasn't part of his memory. Chanyeol had crawled out of Kai's mind like a spider spinning a tight web, and waved at them as if the whole thing was a joke.

"That guy is my nightmare," Kai said. "The moment I close my eyes, he's there. I can't even stop him from following me here."

It was funny how the growling grew more faint, when Zhang Yixing looked at him in indignation. He obviously must have felt like he had got yelled at by someone who had no right to. Why did he have to face his fears, when the one who told him to was just like him? Chanyeol, too, laughed.

"The real him lost his soul because of me," Kai said. "I hope that he's still somewhere in a dream, but the truth is that I can't be sure. We did something were weren't supposed to do, and I lost him, because I ran and left him behind. And now that ghost haunts me in my dreams."

The monster sneaked into the room. It looked a little less dangerous than usual. Chanyeol whistled at it.

"That's what happens when you run in a dream," Kai said. "That's what happens when you can't fight your nightmare."

The monster gave a bark.

"Is that what you want?" Kai asked. "Is that monster really so terrifying that you'd rather run from it forever?"

The monster shrank.

"I haven't really slept in weeks," Kai said. "He's always there, always talking about nonsense, always acting as if nothing has changed. I know he's not real, but I can't face him."

Chanyeol patted the monster's head.  
"I'm not a nightmare though," he said cheerfully, and when Zhang Yixing just blinked at the way he treated the monster like a pet, he added, "I guess it's all just a matter of perspective though. I'm the last thing Jongin wants to see, but to you I don't look threatening, do I?"

Zhang Yixing shook his head in confusion.

"Well, it's the same with this big ugly dog," Chanyeol shrugged when the monster began to wag its tail. "It's not really scary to anyone but you."

The monster turned its head and looked at Zhang Yixing, who seemed too taken aback to be scared. It jumped towards him and just...  
Disappeared.  
It was swept away by a storm.

People started to pour into the building as light crept through the windows.  
No one took any notice of them. Chanyeol jumped out of someone's way, only to have a group of girls pass right through him.

Zhang Yixing seemed even more tense than before.

It was then that everyone suddenly stopped and stared at them, who stood in the middle of the corridor.

"What now?" Chanyeol asked and sounded amused.

"Zhang Yixing," an elderly man suddenly said in a grave voice. "What did you say? You want to become what after graduation?"

Zhang Yixing gulped and answered, "I want to be a musician." He seemed to forget that he was still in a dream.

Everyone around them started to laugh as they asked in a thousand voices, "Are you serious about that? Do you think you can do whatever you want, just because your father is rich? Do you think life is that easy?"

"That's not..." Zhang Yixing began and looked down, unsure how to continue.

Everyone around them pointed at him. "The rich think they can have everything. The rich think they're better than we are. The rich can buy talent with money," they murmered, making it sound like a low hum. The more they repeated those words, the more they sounded like the growling of the monster.

They were finally at the core of the nightmare.

They had to be delicate now.

They couldn't be rash.

"Wait, that's it?" Chanyeol asked in surprise and sounded almost disappointed. "That's what's been troubling you? The opinion of some douchebags?"

Zhang Yixing hunched his shoulders. To him it clearly wasn't such an easy thing.

"I mean, you're rich, so what? It's not like that's your fault," Chanyeol continued and clicked his tongue at the murmuring group. "And it's not like only poor people have the right to do what they want. So maybe you have a different starting point, that doesn't mean that you can't run the same track."  
He turned to Zhang Yixing and patted his shoulder. "Just do what the hell you want and be a man!"

The group became louder. Everyone stared at them.

Chanyeol snorted. "No need to look at me like that," he said and pulled a face at the mass around them. "It's not like you people aren't born without any advantages. Some of you are pretty, some of you are smart, some of you have really supportive parents. Do you want others to blame you for those things? Do you want this boy here," he pulled Zhang Yixing towards him and made him look at them, "to tell you that you have no right to make your own decisions?"

And then they suddenly all shut up.

The spell was lifted and they all moved on, as if nothing had happened. A girl passed through Kai, a ball through Chanyeol and Zhang Yixing started to laugh like a madman.

\---

"He's not really a nightmare, is he?" Zhang Yixing asked before they woke up again, and nodded towards Chanyeol.

Kai shrugged. "He is, to me."

"Does he scare you?" Zhang Yixing asked.

"Yeah," Kai said and tried to ignore Chanyeol's sigh.

He did scare him.

But to him Chanyeol wasn't what the monster had been to Zhang Yixing. What really scared Kai was that he secrectly felt much too willing to accept the Chanyeol in his mind. He wanted him to be there, he wanted him to be back.

It scared him because it was just an illusion and the more used he got to it, the less eager he would become to look for the real Chanyeol.

## phoenix.three

"Hey, Kai," Chanyeol's impostor yelled when he saw him entering the school gate, and waved happily. Kai ignored him. He didn't want to deal with yet another Chanyeol version, even if it only was his face. "Kai, come on, I'll only embarrass you even more if you don't stop now. I have more than enough memories of you I don't mind sharing with your classmates."

Kai slowed down enough for him to catch up.

"Was that so hard?" the impostor smiled broadly and put his arm around his shoulder to make sure that he was the one who set their pace. When Kai obviously wasn't willing to talk to him, the impostor just cleared his throat and continued, "Well, anyway, my dearest Kai, there's something I'm inclined to ask. You see, my very dear friend Baekhyun told me of that very interesting experiment you've tried."

Kai held his breath. He knew that thing would backfire eventually. The whole idea had been ridiculous, just like something the real Chanyeol would have tried. Kai was slowly losing it.

"And well, I have to admit that it certainly sounds like an interesting idea to try and combine two dreams, but," the impostor grinned, and his face turned into a sly grimace. "You see, it puts me in quite an awkward spot if my friend sees me in a dream, and if I have no recollection of such a thing to have happened. Is that your latest trick, Kai? Do you think you can create a brandnew me?"

"It was an accident," Kai said, not because he wanted to suck up to the impostor, but because he had done a grave mistake. It was one thing for the Chanyeol in his mind to follow him into the dreams of strangers, but he should have known that it was too dangerous to pass messages between Baekhyun and his grandmother. They both knew Chanyeol much too well.

But they hadn't given him much of a choice.

\---

"It's her birthday, so I wrote her a song," Baekhyun had said. Kai had been about to mention that he wouldn't sing, but Baekhyun had apparently been prepared. He had taken a video of himself and had handed him his camera, explaining that if Kai could send his grandmother his tests and other hand-written documents, he surely would have been able to send a short video as well. That Kai needed to memorize everything he took with him, Baekyhun obviously hadn't realized.

It had taken him quite an effort, but it had gone relatively well. Baekhyun's grandmother had been happy, not only because of the video, but also because she wasn't just visited by Kai but also by her 'silly boy'. She clearly preferred Chanyeol.

If Kai had limited himself to that one visit, nothing would have happened. Whether Baekhyun's grandmother saw Chanyeol or not didn't matter that much, because she had no way of telling anyone.

But then the Chanyeol in his mind just had to have that stupid idea.  
"You know, your memory is really scary," he had said when they sat on a bench in Baekhyun's grandmother's memory, watching a past scene of the whole family celebrating her birthday. There was cake, and kimbab, and everyone laughed. As usual in her memory, the sky looked like smoke. "I mean, she said so herself, didn't she? Ever since you became the messenger, she even has pieces of the real world in her dream. I probably couldn't do that."

Kai had shrugged. "It's just a matter of training. Once you have control over your mind, you just need to learn how to make things appear."

Chanyeol had nodded and kicked a pebble that disappeared into nothingness. They had sat at the outskirts of the dream, so everything around them had been a little fuzzy. "I guess that's the reason why I'm here as well." He had looked at his own hand and the way it was perfect and clear. There was nothing vague about Chanyeol's appearance, so it even fooled Baekhyun's grandmother. He was just as vivid as Kai himself.

"I guess, yeah," Kai had said awkwardly, because it scared him to think that his mind could subconsciously create something like that.

"So I've been thinking," Chanyeol had then continued and had put on his old mischievous expression. "If you can do all these things, maybe you can also take a tiny piece of a dream with you into another dream."

Kai had frowned, not yet aware just what kind of craziness Chanyeol had in mind.

\---

The young version of Baekhyun's grandmother looked weirdly unstable, a little the way holographic images in old science fiction movies did. She looked like the copy of an old copy of a video taken with a cheap camera.

"Is that really my grandmother?" Baekhyun had asked skeptically. They sat in a messy room that was upside down and that 'looked very much like Baekhyun', at least according to Chanyeol.

The young version of his grandmother had halted her speech with a comical facial expression and awkwardly spread out arms. Like a video Kai could only stop and replay her message. He wasn't the kind of genius who could take her with him, so his only choice had been to memorize her words and her gestures.

"Seriously, Byun Baekhyun," Chanyeol had said angrily. "If you interrupt her again, we won't show you the end of what she said."

"Sorry," Baekhyun had said meekly. "It's just..." He had looked at the figure of the young woman with the bright smile. "She looks so different."

Chanyeol had shrugged. "In your dream you're free to decide your appearance. Although most people just stick with the way they look in real life." He had mustered Baekhyun, who raised an eyebrow at him, and had added, "You're taller in your dream."

Baekhyun had been about to protest, when Chanyeol had elbowed him and gestured Kai to continue.

\---

The whole thing had by far not worked the way Chanyeol had probably imagined it. Kai couldn't take parts of dreams, he could just reproduce things he saw.

Still, that itself already felt like a revelation, because that idea had never occurred to him before. His grandfather had told him how to behave in dreams and how to design his own dream spaces. Rather than to form new things, he had always tried to clear his mind of anything that could have bothered him.

But Chanyeol had never followed fixed rules. He didn't have a mentor, so most of the things he could do were based on his silly experiments.

Kai sometimes missed his spontaneous ideas, and the opportunities that came with them.  
It was maybe for that stupid reason that Kai agreed to Chanyeol's plan.

Later he realized that he had got carried away.

He couldn't possibly save anyone, if he couldn't even keep control over himself.

\---

"Look," the impostor whispered with a wide grin, and pulled Kai even closer. "My dearest Kai, I know you're not an idiot. You know how this whole dream business works, and, honestly, I don't want to clash with you. You and I could be wonderful friends."

Kai's classmates walked by and gave them an odd look, but the impostor didn't mind.

"So I hope you give up that silly hope that this body's original soul still exists. I'm sure you must have realized that it's much too late already. A soul can't exist without a body, and this body is mine now."

He uttered the words Kai wanted to hear the least.

He didn't want anyone to confirm that suspicion.

"Trust me, I know. I have stolen more than enough bodies like this. I personally witnessed every single soul that withered away. Yes, this soul got away, but where could it possibly go? It takes more than some guts to steal a body, if you're nothing but a hurt soul. And that's what he was when he ran."

"Shut up," Kai muttered and the impostor shook his head in amusement.

"Fine," he said slyly and walked away, only to turn back midway. "But please, my dearest Kai, at least leave the dreams of my friends alone. Whatever delusions you show them are not closer to the real Park Chanyeol than I am."

## adult matters

"So, is this the kind of scenario in which a janitor seduces a housewife?" Chanyeol asked and looked around the wide hall. None of the actresses who walked around wore anything that looked like an apron, and no one took notice of them standing around aimlessly, but there was a built-in kitchen set close-by, so Chanyeol probably just jumped to conclusions. 

"Is your dream to become an actor?" Chanyeol asked and made an tiny awkward pause at the word 'actor', when there was no answer. The guy in his overall seemed to shrink even more, and looked as if he tried to hide behind the broom he carried.  
At this rate he probably wasn't too eager to wake up anytime soon, not after knowing that his old classmate, her brother and some random other boy in a high school uniform had seen that his dream world apparently was a porn set.  
It clearly didn't help that they were all taller than him, too. They must have seemed like a SWAT team to him.

"This is my job," the guy said, and before Chanyeol had a chance to get even more excited, he added. "I work part-time for a cleaning company. This is one of our clients."

"So that's why you never talked about it," Juri said, and her words had an even bigger impact on the world around them. All the actors and staff members around them dropped to the ground and moved as if they had painful cramps.

Juri shrieked and stumbled backwards, when the actresses' limbs got twisted and stretched out. Their bodies slowly changed into those of oddly spidery creatures.

Juri screamed, and disappeared, as she woke up.  
Kai sighed. "Sorry about that," he muttered, and followed her.

Back in the hospital she looked at the sleeping boy as if she couldn't believe that his dream had not been cuter.

"What was that?" she asked in confusion. "Just what the hell is wrong with him?"

Kai shrugged. "Nothing. That's what dreams are like."

"But," she began, and must have realized that she had been too naive. Unconsciously she had seen some of the dreams of her family members, people she knew much more closely than a boy she was friends with, so she must have assumed that everyone's dreams were like theirs. But her family wasn't normal to begin with.  
"So where the hell did your stupid friend suddenly come from?" she then asked furiously, and looked around as if he could turn up at any moment. "I mean, it can't possibly go well with him around, can it? You should know better than to invite him along, Jongin. Seriously, I didn't ask you to help me, so that you and that idiot can have some fun. I can't do this myself." She looked at the sleeping figure that only seemed to exist because it was connected to humming machines.

"I need Minseok to wake up," she quietly said.

\---

It had been a little over three weeks since Kim Minseok had fallen into a coma after being hit by a car. One of his job was to deliver Chinese food on a bike at night. The driver had been drunk.

Kai's second oldest sister Juri and him had been classmates in high school, and even now that they both attended different universities they were still friends. When she heard that he had been into accident, she had immediately rushed to the hospital, and when he just hadn't woken up for weeks, she had done something she wouldn't have done under normal circumstances. She had asked her brother for help.

Juri knew that it was possible to walk into dreams, and she knew that she sometimes did so herself. But her grandfather didn't take girls serious, and she had never seen the advantage of dreamwalking, probably because Kai sometimes made a fuss about her invading his privacy.  
"I rather sleep peacefully than to be so aware of my dream, I can't sleep at all," she would say.

Things changed when her only way of connecting with someone was through their dream.

"His mother told me that the doctors don't know why he doesn't wake up," she said and sounded so miserable, Kai couldn't just ignore her. "His body is fine. It just doesn't make sense. Why would he prefer to sleep?"

\---

Juri's consciousness began to seep into Kim Minseok's dream like water from a leaking pipe. She was furious and confused and hurt, and the ground shook. The spidery creatures the porn actresses had permanently turned into were swept away by a storm, and Kim Minseok himself looked panicked at the influence Juri had on his world. His thoughts were unfiltered, and her forcefulness caused his mind to turn into an even greater mess.

"Just what is wrong with you?" she yelled again. She kept repeating the question, no matter how often Kai told her that there was no such a thing as 'wrong' in a dream. No one had to apologize for their subconscious thoughts, and people who weren't used to intruders, had no control over what they showed.

But Juri wasn't rational. She was driven by her own wishes.

"What's so great about all this?" she asked and aggressively pointed at the creatures making obscene noises in their pain.

Kim Minseok tried to escape into another memory, but Juri grabbed the back of his overall and held him back. The way she towered over him seemed to scare him a lot more than anything his dream showed.

A new memory crashed into the old one. The porn set was overlayered by a crammy Chinese restaurant. A skinny waitress came by and threw a delivery jacket over his shoulder and handed him a metal box that contained a noodle dish. He hesitated, because Juri still didn't let go.

She had already gone too far.

"Noona, don't you think that you've done enough?" Kai asked, although it wasn't meant as a question. Had she not been his older sister, he would have thrown her out of the dream already. The only reason why he agreed to accompany every time was that he feared her doing even more damage on her own.

"No," she said, all the while glaring at Kim Minseok. "No, I do in fact not think that I've done enough. Because this idiot still hasn't explained himself."

Kim Minseok blinked. The waitress angrily pushed the metal box at him. "Ah, sorry, I'm on my way," he muttered, and just walked right through Juri.

"Minseok," she exclaimed, and was about to dash after him, when Chanyeol interrupted her.

"You might kill him if you're too pushy," he said and sat down at one of the tables in the restaurant, right next to a girl eating a doodle dish. A camera of the other dream space stuck out of it, but the girl didn't seem to mind. Her chopsticks slid right through the cables.

Juri gave him an odd look, and stopped.

"Noona, let's go," Kai said.

\---

Juri didn't give up, but after a while she began to understand the things she saw.

Each of Kim Minseok's dreams showed him at work or at university. He cleaned porn sets and toilets and empty office buildings. He delivered noodles, always close to being run over by terrible drivers. He cleaned car windows, peeled onions, missed his last bus home. At night he studied, in the morning he delivered newspapers. There were no breaks, no happiness, no smiles.

The only memory that ever seemed to bring him some peace was the one in which a car hit him and gave him a chance to have a break.

"You're tired, aren't you?" she asked when he lay at the side of the road, barely conscious. His body seemed unharmed, although the bike was in a terrible state. The problem was the impact on his brain.

He rubbed his head and closed his eyes. "Yeah," he quietly said, and took a deep breath before he rolled on his side and got up. He changed into his overall and left the road to enter a skyscraper with large open spaces. Day changed into night, and he was still caught in his endless cycle of study and work.

"Is that why you don't want to wake up?" she asked when he mopped a floor until it became transparent. Under it were another memory and another Kim Minseok with another mop.

She sighed, and he paused.

"Look, Minseok, I might not visit you again," she said, and he blinked. "But that doesn't mean that I'll forget you. You can take your time, but I hope you know that there are many people you keep waiting."

She liked him.  
But she knew the rules, and she finally understood why she wasn't supposed to see the insides of someone who really meant something to her.

"We'll be there for you when you come back," she smiled.

Kim Minseok nodded, and went back to work.

\---

Juri sat at the kitchen table and yawned when Kai entered the room. She looked at least as tired and worn out as he felt. They had argued in his dream, when she barged in by accident.

It had been a while since she had last seen his dreams, so it must have surprised her when she entered a mess of memories and thoughts. She usually hadn't even seemed to notice that her mind was wandering, but this time she had stopped and watched.

Kai's dreams were in a terrible state, because he barely managed to sleep. Now that he was conscious inside his dream world, he involuntarily caused it to grow more vivid and detailed.

"Did you tell Grandfather?", she had asked, when a younger version of her taught a younger version of him how to ride a bike. "Does he know that you don't sleep?"

Kai had shaken his head, and had tried to hold his memories back. It was embarrassing how normal his world had become.

"I mean, I'm no expert at this," she had frowned and looked around. "But isn't it dangerous if you're awake in your dream? You might lose your sense of reality."  
Her gaze had stopped when it had met that of Chanyeol who had watched them from a corner. Even to her it must have seemed obvious that something about him was slightly different.

"I know what I'm doing," Kai had said, although he hadn't been so sure whether he really did. It had taken him all his might to make the memories disappear. They had faded away until only the pale version of his room and Chanyeol hade been left.

Chanyeol had flinched when his presence became even more evident.

"Why is he here?" Juri had asked in confusion, and when Kai had just avoided her, she had got furious. "What the hell is he doing in your dream? Why is he always around? Is that why you're not sleeping?"

"That's not it," Kai had begun, but that was exactly what it was.

The real Chanyeol was lost, his impostor had taken his body, and the only one left Kai could still talk to was the one he only saw in his mind.

He liked to think that he needed to consult him to make sure that he would find the real one faster. But in the end that probably just was a lame excuse, because the Chanyeol in his mind couldn't possibly know anything he didn't know himself.

Juri meanwhile misunderstood him. It was too dangerous to tell her the real reason why Chanyeol would be in his mind, so she just assumed that he was real.

  
"He's a hypocrite and you know that," she said when they left the house and walked to the train station. "He told me to stay away from Minseok's dream, because I'm not supposed to enter the mind of someone who means something to me. But isn't that exactly what he's doing now?"

Kai acted as though he couldn't hear her.

"To you it's probably not that obvious, Jongin, but your dream was a mess. I've never seen you like that."

He looked at his feet and at the grey street they walked on.

"Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. But I don't want to watch you lose yourself, just because you allowed someone to break into your mind."

## phoenix.four

> \----replay

"Stop," Chanyeol yelled when another explosion filled Kai's dream. Fire surrounded them and made the air flare. There was no heat, just flickering brightness.

Kai shivered.

"Honestly, Jongin, what's the point of looking at the memory over and over again?" Chanyeol asked and watched another copy of himself that ran away.

"Maybe there's a clue somewhere," Kai said. Another him fell backwards at the sight of the wall of fire in front of him and woke up. Everything around them turned black.

>   
>  \----rewind

The memory began with Chanyeol who told him of an elderly man in his neighbourhood.

"Something about him is really fishy, kind of as if the things he says and his expressions don't match." He shook his arms to explain what seemed hard for him to put into words. "It's like his mind doesn't belong into his body."

"Probably because it wasn't his to begin with," the Chanyeol of Kai's dream said jokingly, but no one paid him any attention.

  
There was a short break consisting of white noise.

Chanyeol of his memory appeared by himself. "Oh, come on, Kim Jongin," he pleaded. "Don't act like a girl. What could possibly happen? It's just a dream. It can't hurt you."

It was the day Kai had agreed to come with him to have a look at his neighbour's dream.

"I should have stopped you," Kai muttered and looked at the cheerful Chanyeol of his memory. Chanyeol of his dream sighed.

  
The world around them turned black.

"You know, it wasn't your fault," Chanyeol of his dream said. "I would have gone and told the thing my name either way. I didn't think it mattered."

"Maybe," Kai said. "But I was there. So I should have done something about it."

  
A little girl appeared. She was the one they had found inside the old man's dream.

"What's your name?" she asked shyly.

"It's a trap," Kai said, but Chanyeol of his memory answered anyway. He had barely told her his name, when the walls of the old man's dream world broke. They stood in the middle of an inferno.

"Naive little boy," the girl said in a roaring voice that filled the air like a million sirens. "Has no one ever told you to be more careful?"

They watched as Chanyeol of his memory panicked and tried to run away. The flames were at his heels.

And then he was suddenly gone. He had jumped into another dream as was his specialty.

The girl clicked her tongue and turned to Kai.

"I will take his body," she smiled innocently. "He opened the door for me. He can't come back, no matter how far he runs."

>   
>  \----error

Chanyeol helped him up.

"There is no clue," he said. "And it won't do you any good if you keep looking at it."

Kai looked at the Chanyeol of his memory who disappeared again. And again and again and again.

"I mean, come on, no matter where I went that day, do you really think I'd stay there?" Chanyeol asked. "This is just you punishing yourself. None of that was your fault."

Kai laughed humourlessly.

"What part of me are you representing anyway? Cowardice? Reason? Because with you around it's only getting worse."

Chanyeol sighed.

"I mean, if I could, I would just go to sleep and forget about all this mess," Kai continued. "But I can't because the real you is who knows where and I'm losing my mind and this is all just..."

The flames licked at the walls of his dream. They turned white and hurt his eyes in their brightness.

"I need every hint I can get. I need you back or none of this will end."

## parasite

When he was in fifth grade he had once forgotten a half-eaten lunch pack in his drawer. He couldn't really remember why he had put it there, but figured that it must have been because his mother always got angry when he didn't eat all his food. He probably had meant to empty it in secret, only to then forget about it.

When he had found it, it had made his stomach turn. The lid was transparent, so he could see the mold inside the box much too clearly. He knew average green mold but the kind he found there was a lot worse than anything he had ever seen before. It was almost pretty, like tiny black webs with tiny black heads that looked as if they could pop open any minute.

He threw the closed box away and always made sure that he didn't forget food afterwards. The mold somehow had left a deeper impression on him than anything he had seen in a dream.

So when he saw the black mold growing on Do Kyungsoo's left arm it made him feel sick.

  
"Oh, how lovely of you to come by," an eerily high-pitched voice said and Do Kyungsoo looked up, as if it was only then that he noticed the intruders. He was incredibly pale, as if all his life energy had been drained. Not even in his sleep he found any rest. "Are you friends? What are your names?"

"I'm Kai," Kai said and tried to surpress his anxiety. Nothing could hurt him if he followed the rules. He only had to hide his real name.  
This time he would set things right. There wouldn't be any more mistakes, and afterwards he would maybe find a way to deal with the thing that had stolen Chanyeol's body.

  
"What the hell is this?" Chanyeol next to him asked in irritation. "What's that black stuff?"

Kai pressed his lips together. If only Chanyeol wasn't there, things would have been easier.

"I'm Kyungsoo," the high-pitched voice said. "And you are...?"

Chanyeol ignored it and angrily turned to Kai. "Is that a parasite inside my friend's mind?"

Do Kyungsoo took a step forward. The mold slowly spread over his chest.  
The spores wouldn't be able to hurt them, not if they were prepared. The parasite couldn't do anything to Chanyeol, even if he was to blurt out his name, and Kai wasn't so stupid to allow anything to follow him back into his head.

"What's wrong with you?" Chanyeol asked. "Do you think the real me would hide in another parasite-infested dream?"

That wasn't the point.

Kai didn't want to be blamed for another mind that got lost because of a parasite.  
Or so he tried to convince himself. In reality he just hoped to find a way to beat something that grew in a mind, slowly devouring its host. This was the only chance he had.

"What's your name, my friend?" the high-pitched voice asked, and Chanyeol scoffed.

"You don't know?" he asked in mocked indignation. "That really hurts my feelings, Fake Kyungsoo. I'm," Kai's heart seemed to skip a beat at the déjà vu, "Hong Gil-dong."

"Oh, I remember. My friend Hong Gil-dong!" the high-pitched voice giggled and spores burst from the tiny heads. Chanyeol shoved Kai away and pulled a face when he got covered in what looked like black snow.

\---

"A parasite?" Kai had asked a few days ago when he had leaned his forehead against one of the windows of the corridor in front of his classroom. His mind had been racing.

"Well, that's what Chanyeol says," Baekhyun had shrugged. "Kyungsoo lately always nods off in class. I thought that he maybe just studies too much at night, but according to Chanyeol he probably has a parasite in his head."

It hadn't made sense.

With 'Chanyeol' Baekhyun always meant the impostor, that very impostor who had no reason to be helpful.

Kai hadn't known what to think. Maybe it was a trap the impostor had set up. Maybe he thought that he could get rid of Kai if he made him deal with another parasite. But he must have known that Kai wasn't a novice.  
Why would the impostor give Kai any hints that could cause his own ruin?

"Chanyeol says that there's nothing he can do," Baekhyun had said. "But he told me that you're good at that kind of stuff." He had shown an apologetic expression. "I mean, I don't know how bad those parasites are, but, well, Kyungsoo is my friend and everything, so I want to help him. So, could you maybe have a look?"

It just had to be some kind of trap.

\---

"Something about you is wrong," the high-pitched voice said and sounded strained, when Chanyeol wiped the spores off himself. The mold slowly covered the floor of the empty space they stood in. It had already eaten everything inside Do Kyungsoo's dream. There wasn't much left of the real him.

Chanyeol ruffled through his hair and shook himself in disgust, while muttering, "As if people from outside were so stupid to tell you their real names. 'Hong Gil-dong', my ass. I bet you're not even Korean, or else you'd immediately get that the name is fake."

It was odd. Kai wondered whether the Chanyeol in his mind was smarter because he was something Kai had come up with, or whether Chanyeol had just learned from his mistake.  
They had argued about it a lot. "What can they do with my name?" Chanyeol had asked before. "It's just words."  
He had only understood it when it was already too late.

"Something about you," the high-pitched voice slowly repeated and even more of the black heads burst, "is wrong."

Black snow covered the dream.

The scenery was different but the feeling was the same. A parasite devouring a mind.

Kai had been inside the head of someone whose soul had already disappeared. In the end there would be nothing but mold, black mold filling the empty dream like a tight web. Once it lost interest, the parasite would look for another host, forever wandering.

His grandfather had once told him that every parasite originally was a dreamwalker. Unable to face death, they had started to steal bodies, always losing a tiny bit of themselves. In the end there was nothing left of them but greed covered in a cocoon of death and darkness.

And it scared him, because, again, he found himself helpless.

Black mold crawled around him. "What's your real name, my friend?" it whispered and touched his shoe. "Don't you want to tell me? I can free you of all your worries."

Chanyeol grabbed his arm and pulled him away, meanwhile stepping in the mold.  
"Look, Jongin," he said urgently. "This is really not the place to space out. We should leave, if you don't know how to fight this."

\---

"Parasites?" his grandfather had asked sceptically. He was the last one Kai wanted to talk to about it, but he couldn't consult Chanyeol, who would obviously stop him. "Why would you ask? The best way to shield yourself is to hide your name."

"Yeah, but," Kai had said and had tried to sound as if it was meant as a hypothetical question. "What if I accidentally tell them? Is there a way to get rid of a parasite?"

His grandfather had given him a long hard look, before he had sighed, "If you're so stupid to invite a parasite into your body, you deserve it. Unless it leaves out of its own will, you'll be stuck with it until there's nothing left of you."

"So you can't kill it?"

His grandfather had frowned. "I never heard of anyone killing a parasite. You'd have to be stronger than someone who was capable and ruthless enough to steal a body and eat its soul."

\---

"We have to make it leave," Kai said firmly. "That's the only chance we have."

"Leave?" Chanyeol asked. "Where to? It's not like that would make a difference. It would just infest someone else."

Do Kyungsoo's complete left side was already covered in mold when he walked into their direction. His world was growing to be more and more grotesque. "Young dreamwalkers," the high-pitched voice said, and this time Do Kyungsoo's lips also moved. Both their voices formed a strange melody. "I will leave this boy, if you give me one of your bodies. I won't hurt you. We can have fun together." Do Kyungsoo face turned into a wide smile. "Much more fun than I and this boy already have."

Kai took a step into the direction of what was left of Do Kyungsoo.

Maybe there was a way. No one knew dream spheres and their dangers as well as his grandfather, but his knowledge also set him limits. Because he knew the dangers, he was afraid to take risks.

Not even his grandfather could know whether it was possible for a dreamwalker to kill a parasite, because people like them knew how to steer away from any possible danger. Chanyeol's body got stolen because he had run, but if Kai just faced the creature head-on, he maybe had a chance.  
He had to take the risk if he wanted to save Chanyeol. Even if he found him, they would just face the same dilemma again. Chanyeol couldn't just take his body, not if his impostor blocked his path. They needed a plan to fight it.

"Fine," Chanyeol said calmly. "I'll do it. My real name is Park Chanyeol, and you, Mr Parasite, seem like a really fun fellow."

What?  
Kai's eyes widened in shock.

The high-pitched voice giggled. "My friend Chanyeol." The mold left Do Kyungsoo and formed something like a bizarre creature, like the hunched shadow of a person, that slowly slid towards Chanyeol. Do Kyungsoo fell on his knees.

"Are you crazy?" Kai gasped, and tried to drag Chanyeol away from it. "You're not even..." He wasn't even real. So what would happen to a parasite if it tried to enter an illusion?

The mold creature floated in front of them and held out what looked like an arm. "So what's your name?" Chanyeol asked and attempted to shake its hand, only to have his one get stuck inside. Mold started to spread over his arm.

"I'm Death."

Chanyeol snorted. "I bet your mother couldn't stand you." Mold crept over his body and grew into an even more bizarre web. The entire mold inside Do Kyungsoo's dream moved towards Chanyeol in strange waves. The black snow blocked their view.

Kai felt sick and turned away.  
He just wanted to run, not just because he hated black mold, but because he couldn't stand the view. It was much too familiar. The view of a parasite stealing Chanyeol.

But this time something was strange about it. This time Chanyeol laughed.

"Well, you're really a sad little bastard," he said cheerfully when only his head was still free. "You call yourself 'Death'? I mean, honestly? Mold is not really a very dignified way to express yourself. How long have you been doing this now?"

A incomprehensible high-pitched noise came from his chest.

"Really? That's actually quite long," Chanyeol mused when mold crawled up his cheek.

The high pitched voice giggled again.

"You took advantage of a child, didn't you?" Chanyeol asked and touched his chest. "You were old and scared, and that child had a pure and simple mind, so you stole its body, didn't you? Zhong Zhaokang?"

The high-pitched voice screamed, as the mold suddenly turned into black cysts. Chanyeol's whole shape began to waver, as if he was made of boiling tar.

"Did you know, Jongin?" Chanyeol asked with a reassuring smile. "Zhong Zhaokang was a real pervert when he was still himself. He didn't molest children, but he liked to walk into their dreams." The high-pitched voice made a gargling noise and Chanyeol's hand was thrown up to cover his mouth. Chanyeol slapped it down, and looked even more amused. "He tried it with women before, but back in the day everyone was a lot more aware of intruders in their dreams. One woman once beat him with a stick and he couldn't even fight back."

Chanyeol's chest burst. The mold tried to get away and back to Do Kyungsoo who stared at them impassively, but Chanyeol held it back.

"Did you know, Zhong Zhaokang, that fire can kill mold?" Chanyeol asked.

The high-pitched voice made terribly whimpering noises as it went up into flames.

It died.

The parasite died at the hands of a nightmare.

\---

"Parasite?" the impostor asked and feigned ignorance. He didn't even slow down when Kai appeared next to him on his way to school. "What are you even talking about so early in the morning, my dear Kai?"

"I'm talking about Do Kyungsoo's parasite you supposedly couldn't do anything about," Kai said grimly.

The impostor furrowed his brows as if he had to think really hard to recall that memory. "Ah," he then said. "Yes, yes, sure, I remember. I wouldn't want to leave my new body, would I?" he smiled innocently. "But what about it? How did you find out?"  
When Kai gave him a wearily annoyed look, he let out a short barking laugh.

"I see, I see," the impostor grinned. "You're not in a joking mood today, are you, my dearest Kai? Although I personally find you much too serious for a boy your age." He playfully patted his shoulder. "So what is it you want to ask? Are creatures like us all in a circle of friends? Is Park Chanyeol's head also full of mold now?"

"Why did you make me have a look at it?"

The impostor shook his head in indignation. "You're really straight-forward, aren't you?" he asked and let out a deep sigh. "Well, fine, let me tell you."  
He stopped and gave Kai an amused look.  
"I thought you might be interested to know what a mind looks like before something like us kills its soul. You've already seen the end product, haven't you? That's what this body's," he touched his chest, "mind also looks like right now. Because the soul got away."

Kai unwillingly looked at the place the impostor touched. Inside Chanyeol's body was a neverending inferno now.

"But at first it's the way Do Kyungsoo's mind looked like. I assume that it already was in quite an advanced stage. We enter the mind and quietly stick to the host, slowly draining all their energy. They don't even notice it at first. They walk around like ghosts and no matter how much they sleep, they never feel refreshed. Every day they grow a little more tired."

That's why even the people around Do Kyungsoo had noticed it, although they obviously couldn't find the connection.

"After a while they realize that they always see the same image in their sleep. In my case it would be fire, in Do Kyungsoo's it was mold. But there's nothing they can do, because it's already too late."

The impostor gave him an oddly sad look that made him uncomfortable.

"Did you know, my dear Kai? There are two ways to kill a parasite.

"The first one only works if you know its name. If you call it by its name, you can kill it the way you would kill a real person in the real world. But it's of course not easy to know the name of a parasite. Many of us have long forgotten theirs."

Kai frowned. Something was wrong.

"You see, the second way is similarly difficult," the impostor said and its lips curled into a thin smile.

"We can kill each other. Only a parasite can swallow one of its own, even without knowing its name beforehand. It can just enter the very basis of its kind and destroy it from inside."

So that was the impostor's real aim.

Without knowing his name, he couldn't hurt Kai the way he had hurt Chanyeol. But it was very well possible to plant tiny seeds of doubt and fear in his heart.

## mess (interlude)

It was maybe because she dropped into the lake when she wandered into the dream. For Juri it was like sleepwalking, so if there were no hindrances in her way, she just walked away without noticing much of her surroundings. Kai usually had time enough to make sure that she wouldn't get startled, but this time her appearance was so sudden, he couldn't make the lake disappear. Around them was nothing but water and they sat in a boat, so when Juri popped up a few metres away from them, she fell.  
  
She couldn't drown of course, but just the fact that she lost her footing and found herself surrounded by water made her so angry, the water began to boil, even more so because Kai didn't immediately help her.  
  
He was stuck.  
  
He wanted to drain the lake, but couldn't.  
  
He tried to pull her up, and couldn't.  
  
And he couldn't swim.  
  
It wasn't supposed to matter, but he suddenly felt afraid. He unwillingly remembered that one time one if his cousins had shoved him into a swimming pool that was much deeper than he was tall. He had lost his consciousness back then. The last thing he saw was the blueish water around him.  
  
A younger version of him fell into the lake. In the boat sat his cousin who grinned at him.  
  
"I don't suppose that's your idea of helping your sister?" Chanyeol frowned when the tiny cousin with the yellow bathing cap tried to kick his shin. He was only half Chanyeol's size but to Kai he still looked threatening. In reality he had always been taller than him.  
  
The grown-up version of his cousin popped up and the boat shook violently.  
  
Chanyeol snorted, and jumped into the lake. Kai knew that he couldn't swim either, he was more of a useless city kid after all, but he at least seemed to understand where he really was. Nothing was impossible inside a dream, not if one's will was strong enough. Kai knew that. He knew, and yet...  
  
The two copies of his cousin laughed and pointed at him.  
  
"Go away," Kai muttered, but they wouldn't budge.  
  
A massive manhole cover appeared on the surface of the lake and was thrown up. Out of it came Chanyeol and Juri who climbed a flight of stairs.  
  
"What are you, a stalker?" Juri asked angrily and pulled the shirt she wore down as far as possible. She always wore big old T-shirts at night, never really minding how much thigh her family members saw. It had never mattered that she couldn't control her appearance in dreams, at least not until she kept running into Chanyeol, whom she believed to be a real person. "Why is your face always the first thing I see in my brother's dream? Do you hijack his mind the moment he falls asleep? Are you camping outside the house?"  
She shook herself in digust and gave Kai a look of reproach when she walked over the lake to get to the boat.  
  
When she noticed her cousin, she blinked. "Why are there two Yangkis?"  
  
Behind her Chanyeol dragged up the drowned version of Kai as a child.  
  
"Just what is going on here?" Juri asked in confusion.  
  
It was Chanyeol who made the lake disappear.  
  
Kai slowly lost his abilities.  
  


## trap

The world was dyed in a dim orange that reminded him of his childhood. His grandmother had owned a dusty old-fashioned lamp with an orange shade. Its light had been barely enough to illuminate her living room and whenever there was anything she wanted to read, she had always gone to the kitchen instead.

The scenery around him was just like his grandmother's living room. The only shape he could really make out at first was that of Chanyeol right next to him. He looked tense.

"This," Chanyeol muttered. "This is..."

Something dropped to the ground a few metres away from them.

"Jongin," Chanyeol said urgently and held onto the sleeve of his jacket. "Did you get permission to come here?"

Something else dropped to the ground, this time right next to them. It appeared to be a head severed from its body. Its eyes were wide open in silent shock.

Kai looked up. Over them was a floating island made of a thousand single pieces. Every once in a while one of them fell down and landed on the soft ground with a thud.  
  
It was an island made of corpses.

"Jongin, please," Chanyeol said and pulled his sleeve. He tried to force him back into consciousness. He already had much better control than Kai himself. "Do you have any idea what you're doing here?"

A shadow appeared over them and they jumped out of the way of a torso splashing on the ground. They got covered in tiny drops of blood.

"Shit," Chanyeol cursed under his breath. "This is bad. We shouldn't be here. We have to get out before he notices us."

There it was. The first mistake.

"Before who notices us?" Kai asked, still staring at the island above them. "Do you know whose dream this is?"

It probably sounded like a rhetorical question. Chanyeol frowned at him, obviously not sure how to react. But he had already said too much, accidentally fuelling Kai's doubts even more.

"You don't, do you?" Kai asked and forced himself to smile. "Because I have absolutely no idea. So you can't know either, can you?"

Chanyeol's eyes widened for split seconds. "I have no clue," he said and looked away. "But it looks dangerous."

He lied.

And Kai's mind stopped working, like a computer infested with a virus. He couldn't process any information, as if he was frozen. If not for Chanyeol, he would have been knocked down by the torso that had somehow grown limbs.

"Park Chanyeol, I told you, didn't I?" a voice roared. "Get the hell out of my head."

Even more body parts dropped from the floating island and formed an army of mismatching warriors.

And Kai laughed. This was the end.

\---

"You know, my dear Kai," the impostor had begun thoughtfully while looking out of Kai's window. He had invited himself over for dinner, and Kai had found it hard to decline. Whatever the impostor had to say would probably either be a trap or sheer mockery, but something about his behaviour had put Kai off. "I took the liberty to look at some of the minds you left behind. Baekhyun's grandmother found you really impressive."

"So?" Kai had asked while trying to hide his uneasiness. He couldn't think of a reason for the impostor to be interested in his doings, not after making it clear that Kai had no way of hurting him in any way.

"So I also saw afterimages of that odd companion you always bring with you." He had turned around, giving Kai another of those unreadable mocking expressions. "At first I thought it was just part of your imagination. It smelled of you."

"So?" Kai had asked. That the impostor knew of the Chanyeol in his dreams hadn't been new to him.

The impostor laughed.

"Oh, my poor boy, just how many hints do you need until you understand my point?" he asked and shook his head. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. The brighter your companion gets, the more you fade away. Don't you find that a little unusual for a dream image? If it really is a dream image that is."

Kai had looked the impostor in the eye for a few seconds, before he had turned away. He wasn't an idiot. He had of course noticed it.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he had said.

At first he had thought that it was the lack of proper sleep. His dreams were all over the place. He had trouble focussing and couldn't influence the things he saw and thought about.

After a while he had realized that he was getting weaker.

Chanyeol meanwhile just seemed to grow more and more sharp. He took the lead. He did things Kai slowly became unable to do.

It wasn't normal and Kai knew that. But he didn't want to jump to conclusions. The one thing that always hindered his suspicions from growing was the fact that Chanyeol never talked about anything Kai couldn't know. He always seemed to have those limits, proving that he was just part of his imagination.

"How about testing the image, just to make sure?" the impostor had grinned, apparently aware of Kai's trail of thoughts. "Let's show it a mind you know nothing about, a mind the real Park Chanyeol knew really well."

Kai hadn't wanted to agree to the plan.

"That's not a problem, is it? I'm sure we would both feel better after confirming the identity of your dream image."

  
In the end Kai had found himself in front of an unfamiliar house, accompanied by the impostor. The moon shone bright enough for Kai to clearly see the shape of the building.

"See that window over there?" the impostor asked and Kai eyes followed the direction his hand pointed at. "The one inside that room should answer all our questions."

It had obviously been another trap.

\---

"Jongin, wake up," Chanyeol yelled and held onto his arm, but Kai couldn't stop laughing. Chanyeol already knew his new abilities. He knew that he could force Kai to do things, that he could create the world they were in, that he was the powerful one now. He had a consciousness of his own, so there was no doubt that he himself wasn't confused at all about his state.

It was laughable to think that Kai himself had realized it so late.

He pulled himself free, and took a few steps backwards, right into the open arms of one of the patched up creatures of the dream they were in. Its hand dug deep into his shoulder.

"Jongin," Chanyeol gasped, but Kai was still laughing, even when creature ripped off his arm. Chanyeol wanted to leap forward, when someone took his wrist and held him back.

"Get out," a short boy said with a sad expression. His voice sounded like distant thunder.

Chanyeol panicked. "I'm not here because I want to," he muttered, still staring at Kai who sat down on the soft ground and kicked his severed arm, endlessly glad that he was still in control enough to prevent himself from thinking of it as real.

The short boy scoffed. "Right," he said. "You're here by accident, aren't you? So you accidentally brought your friend." He looked at Kai in disgust. "Do you think this is a joke? Do you think I like to see these things in my sleep? I just want to lead a normal life."

"Look," Chanyeol said hastily. "I told you that-." He paused. "I mean, I know that-."

"What?" the boy asked.

Chanyeol avoided his gaze.

"What?" the boy asked again. This time the ground under them shook.

But Chanyeol still didn't say a word. He quietly pulled at Kai's mind, obviously still hoping to find an easy way out. If Kai woke up, he wouldn't have to give any explanations, or so he obviously thought.

"What?" the boy yelled and large parts of the island dropped to the ground. Kai laughed at the idea that he soon wouldn't be able to tell his own arm apart from the others, and Chanyeol shielded his head. The boy meanwhile furiously turned to Kai. "And what's so funny?"

Another warrior dragged Kai up. Chanyeol gave him a pleading glance, so he said, "Everything." The warrior held him high above his feet. "Everything about this is funny. This has to be the funniest dream I have ever seen."  
The warrior teared off his other arm. Blood fell from the sky like rain.

It really was funny in a way.

He had known that the dream he was to enter wouldn't be pretty, or else the impostor wouldn't have chosen it. It would have to be something that could force Chanyeol into a corner, something that was overwhelming enough.  
But he still hadn't expected something as simple and brutal.

Chanyeol tried to chase the warriors away but there were too many of them. They couldn't hurt him unless he allowed them to, so he stayed unscathed. That in response fuelled the boy's anger even more, because none of his attacks on Chanyeol were of any real use.

Kai meanwhile was ripped apart and Chanyeol didn't get close enough to help him.

It was funny, because the situation forced Chanyeol to wonder just what Kai's aim was.

Did he willingly get hurt? Was that why he wouldn't wake up?

Or was he so weak that he couldn't defend himself? Because Chanyeol had stolen all his energy?

It was when Kai's head fell off that Chanyeol snapped.  
"Stop," he quietly said. Sparks formed around him. He gave in.  
"Kim Jongdae, just stop it already," he exclaimed. "I thought you were scared that you could turn into your brother. I thought that's why you keep seeing this stuff."

The rain around them stopped.

"So why do you hurt people in your dream? Isn't that exactly what you're so scared of? Isn't that what your brother would do?"

Lightning blinded them. The world changed like a film that burnt away. White flames ate up the picture, leaving only brown spots.

The floating island disappeared, as did the corpses around them.

Kai was back to the way he was.

"I'm really sorry, okay?" Chanyeol continued. "I shouldn't have seen all this to begin with, but honestly? Do you think the images will disappear if you keep them hidden? Do you think your dreams will change if you act like there's nothing wrong?"

He avoided to look at Kai.

"You can't just avoid the truth."

The boy looked miserable, and Kai sighed.

"It's not Chanyeol's fault that we're here," he said. "I'm really sorry."

He didn't wait for any explanations or anymore awkward situations. It was wrong for him to have come, but he wasn't in the mood to care about any of the things he had seen. Dream were private, so by barging into a really sensitive one he had done something unforgivable. He didn't want that realization to sink in.

  
Outside the impostor grinned at him.

"I assume you found your answer?"

\---

"Jongin," Chanyeol immediately said once Kai had fallen asleep. He looked as if he had waited for him.

They were in Kai's room. The walls broke in, followed by a mayhem of memories. One of them was the floating island.

"Look, that thing we saw," Chanyeol said and stared at the threatening monstrosity over them, as if he feared another shower of body parts. "The dream, it belongs to my friend. He's really not a bad guy. His brother had a problem, and he hurt some people. He's getting treatment now, but my friend, he-."

"That's none of my business," Kai said in a bored tone, and closed his eyes. Maybe he could fall asleep if he really wanted to. He had no reason to be awake any longer.

Chanyeol was quiet for a while, before he muttered, "You had no right to go there. I thought you respected other people's privacy. I thought you learned that after..." He trailed off, probably aware that he reached a dangerous topic.

"After what?" Kai asked, still unwilling to open his eyes. He didn't want to see the mess that was his weakened mind. "After that one time when you made me come with you? When you ran away and hid, because we encountered a parasite?"

Chanyeol didn't answer.

Kai sat up, just in time to watch his oldest sister who trashed her bike when she was hit by Kai's arm falling from the sky. It was ridiculous.

"Talking about parasites," he said and suppressed a humourless laugh. "How much time do I have left? Before my soul dies, I mean?"

Chanyeol avoided his glance.

"I mean, that's your current aim, isn't it? You need a body, so you take mine. Because you know my name. Because that's really a lot more comfortable than to take back yours. That other parasite is not as naive as I am, right? Lucky you."

He didn't know when he started raising his voice but his words echoed in his dream. All the images were swept away. Only Chanyeol remained.

"It must have been really funny to chase me around all those dreams. Did you enjoy it? To give me stupid hints? Although you knew that there was no point in looking for you? Because you were there all the time?"

Chanyeol winced. "That's not..." he began.

"That's not what? Not the truth?" Kai scoffed. "Then what? So you're not actually..."

He frowned.

"Not actually..."

The world became blank.

"A parasite," he quietly said.

## small steps

"Don't let him treat you like that," Yoonhee yelled.

Kai sighed and put his hands over his ears. His oldest sister's voice drilled itself deep into his brain.

"After everything you've done for him, he can't just treat you like garbage. You need to show him that you're not just some pushover."

He looked straight into the light of his desk lamp and tried not to blink, until tears blurred his vision.

"Hwang Hyemi, I'm telling you," his sister said angrily. "Break up with that guy. And don't tell me that was an accident. You don't just kiss some bitch by accident. This isn't a TV drama."

He didn't mean to eavesdrop but her voice was the only thing that still kept him awake. For the first time he was thankful that she was addicted to talking to her friends until late at night.

His alarm clock kept ticking in its annoying regular rhythm.

There was a noise of water being flushed.  
Probably his mother.  
She had a weak bladder.

Downstairs someone opened the front foor.  
Probably his father.  
He always went out to have a drink with his collagues. Socializing, he called it.

Yoonhee laughed hysterically.

Someone pounded against a door.  
"Unnie, please, just shut up already," Juri yelled. "I have an important exam tomorrow."

He saw bright spots when he looked at his clock, because he had stared into the lamp for too long. It was not even midnight.

Three days.

He had spent three days without sleep, but he slowly reached his limit. His mind felt like glue.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Yoonhee said. He heard her heavy steps and then the door she opened furiously. It was funny to think that she was the oldest of them. There were five years between her and Kai, but only his school uniform and the height of her heels seemed to give that away.  
"Are you happy now? That was a really important call," she said in a shrill voice.

Juri muttered something before she went back. They both slammed their doors.

Kai stared into his lamp.

His body was tired.

His legs itched, but he was too tired to scratch them.

His arms felt numb. They hung on his sides like wet laundry.

And before he had a chance to stop them, his eyes closed and he fell into a black hole.

  
He felt a little like Alice in Wonderland as he kept falling down what looked like a rabbit hole.

A rabbit carrying his alarm clock fell down next to him. He laughed. It was pathetic.

But if this went on, he would maybe just pass out after a while. Maybe this was what people usually talked about when they were about to die. His whole life flashed by.

"Jongin, look," Chanyeol said, and Kai turned his head. They were on the same level, but unlike him Chanyeol wasn't falling. Unlike him he wasn't out of control.  
"I never meant for this to happen. I have no idea how I came here, but at first I didn't even know myself that I wasn't a memory. I barely existed then."

Next to them Kai's grandfather spiralled down with his old-fashioned walking stick. "Just take small steps, boy," his voice echoed.

Small steps.

That was what he had explained back when he taught him how to control his dream spaces. He had told him to think of one simple thing, something he could focus on, so that he could block out all the other images.

"I need your power," Chanyeol said, when bright light flooded the world around them. It was pink, like the light of a lamp through closed eyelids.

Small steps.

Kai hit the ground and all the images were swept away. He had to think of one simple thing, the same simple thing that had helped him before.

A flashy robot peeled itself out of the ground like an insect in spring. It had been the mascot of a science fiction cartoon Kai had loved as a child. He probably still had his headless toy somewhere.

His grandfather had told him that he had thought of his father's horse as a child, but to Kai it was easier to think of a toy, rather than of something complicated like a big animal.

The robot took heavy steps that made the ground shake. In the background its title music played.

Kai tried not to look at Chanyeol, who sighed again.

If he just treated a parasite like any other dream image he didn't want, it would maybe go away. If he just focussed all his will, maybe...

"Kim Jongin, look," Chanyeol said and touched the robot that inflated like a balloon. Kai's knees gave way. He was sick of it.

"Jongin," Chanyeol said again, and Kai wondered whether he had realized all the time what it meant to know a name. Every time he uttered his name, Kai would become weaker. He already was little more than a joke inside his own world. "I know I should have told you, when I realized that I'm..." He trailed off, still unwilling to admit that he had turned into a monster.  
"This is the only chance I have. I mean, you know, don't you? That I wouldn't even exist any longer if not for you. That woman has stolen my body, and I've never been very strong to begin with."

"Woman?" Kai asked.

"I can beat her," Chanyeol said firmly. "I can beat her if I have your power."

The brightness of the world around him hurt Kai's eyes.

He tried to wake up.

"I'm really sorry about all this," Chanyeol said quietly. "But I can't stop now."

Kai sank into the ground, as if it was him who had become the memory.

## phoenix.five

When Kim Jongin woke up, the room around him startled him because it was filled with colours and details. He half expected the walls to break in, but nothing happened.

He was about to enter the bathroom when his sister Yoonhee shoved him out of the way.  
"It's not your turn yet," she hissed. She was taller than expected.

Down the corridor his sister Juri laughed at him. She was already dressed, and looked tense.  
"You finally look like you actually slept," she smiled, before she headed downstairs.

His father was busy reading the newspaper.  
His mother was busy arguing with Yoonhee.  
Juri was busy worrying about an exam.

None of them noticed a thing.

  
The first time Kim Jongin actually felt a difference was when he reached school. Everything looked a little sharper, the whole perspective had changed a little.

He knew the faces that greeted him, but he had never actually talked to them before. He had to hold back a little, if he didn't want to stick out.

He saw his face in the windows of the main entrance, but he couldn't waver now.

On the second floor he finally reached the room he hadn't entered in what felt like an eternity. The door sign hung higher than he remembered.

"Oh, dear, could it be?" a voice he didn't recognize at first asked. He had never heard it from outside. "Are you perhaps looking for me, my dear Kai?"

He turned around to be faced with Park Chanyeol. It unnerved him that he had to look up, though not much. He wasn't used to taller people.

"I actually am," Kim Jongin grinned, and Park Chanyeol's smile slowly faded.

Kim Jongin frowned. "Don't tell me you allowed Mom to cut your hair," he gasped.

Park Chanyeol unwillingly took a step backwards. "It's you," he muttered.

  
Chanyeol finally had the upper hand. He not only had Jongin's body, he also had his power, something the woman who had stolen his body had tried to avoid.  
That's why she had told Jongin how to kill Chanyeol.  
She knew that she wouldn't last if Chanyeol went after her with Jongin's power.  
She knew what Jongin himself hadn't understood.

Jongin was strong, not just because he knew those scared rules his grandfather had forced upon him, but in spite of them. If he had taken more risks, he would have been able to do even more amazing things. Without the limits he had set himself, he could have become even stronger.

And now that Chanyeol had that power, combined with what was left of Zhong Zhaokang, he could overwhelm her, the woman who had taken his body as if it was nothing.  
And she knew.

  
"I have a proposal to make," the face of Kim Jongin said, and the face of Park Chanyeol gave him a wary look. "Let's swap. I get my body, you get this one."

Park Chanyeol frowned. "How do I know I can trust you? This could be a trick."

Kim Jongin shrugged. "You can have a look if you want to. And you know my name, so you could easily take over. There's nothing left of him, so my name is all it takes."

## comfort woman

Her entrance felt like a meteor hitting the earth. There was light and fire, and everything around her burned. She was an old soul, covered in flames, without a face.

'Phoenix', she called herself.

She put on a show, and Chanyeol tried not to laugh. There was nothing about her that scared him any longer.

"See? He's gone," Chanyeol said cheerfully and the figure flickered as it spread, slowly exploring its surroundings. He could have stopped her, but he didn't. He needed her to see everything. He needed her to trust him. "And I'm sure this place would be more comfortable for you anyway."

Fire surrounded him, just the way it had back then, when he had lost everything.

"His family will definitely notice that you're not him, but they're smart. They know that there's nothing they can do, if he was so stupid to tell someone his name."

The fire licked at his legs. He didn't flinch, not even when a shrill noise like a laughter filled the air. It was the third time now that he faced a parasite.

"How very despicable of you, Park Chanyeol," the phoenix woman said and sounded amused, although it was hard to tell. Her voice sounded female, but also as inhuman as crackling fire.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Well," he said, and balled his hands into fists. Just a little closer, just a little more. Until then he couldn't move. "In the end everyone fights for themselves I guess."

Something like a hand carressed his cheek. His skin sizzled, although it wasn't real. The skin was part of his soul. She would of course try to hurt him.

"So, do you like it?" he asked chattily.

She didn't answer, but her thoughts were obvious. Even larger parts of her seeped into every pore of the dream. At this rate they would be able to switch. She would come over, and once she was gone, Chanyeol could return.

"Why would you give this to me?" she asked and embraced him.

He finally saw it. Her heart.

"I wouldn't," he smiled and thrust his hand into what he assumed to be her chest. A shadow fell from his back and dropped to the ground. It looked like the flimmering picture of an old TV, but it was still there. It had been hidden where the phoenix couldn't find it, deep inside what Chanyeol was now.

Kai had become a shadow, but he was not yet dead.

"I see," the phoenix woman said as her figure slowly turned into a human shape. "I see," she laughed, as she grabbed Chanyeol's arm and tried to pull herself free.

"You two must really think that you're so smart."  
When she finally managed to get him off herself, it was already too late.

She wasn't the inferno any longer, or the little girl, or the old man. She seemed barely older than them and was dressed in a colourful hanbok.

"Are you a shaman priest?" Chanyeol frowned. "Or do you just like to dress up, Shin Bokja?"

She gave him a devilish smile and tried to get back to his body, but he stopped her. Now that he knew her name, they were not just even, he had the full advantage.

And the panicked expression in her eyes told him that she must have realized it, too.

"I mean, I can just find out myself, if you don't tell me," he said flatly and pulled at one of her memories.

Her eyes widened. "You have no right," she muttered, when he interrupted her harshly.

"No right?" he scoffed. "Why wouldn't I have the right? Didn't you walk around with my memories? Didn't you lie to my friends and my family members? So why do I not have the right?" His voice had gradually turned louder.  
When she tried to get away, he grabbed her arm. Pictures poured out of her body, pictures of her actual past and of the lives she had lived since then. Pictures of pain and suffering and betrayal.

Chanyeol ripped her apart, not minding the things he saw.

Kai thought he heard her laugh, and closed his eyes. He had become a shadow overflooded with her memories.

\---

Shin Bokja was, like them, a child with an immense power. She could wander dreams, something that had always seemed rather simple and easy to grasp for them, but for her it had meant that she was cursed. She couldn't control it.

Her parents feared her, but her village head believed her to be a powerful being. She was secretly trained to become a shaman in that small world that was her village.

It was the early twentieth century.

Japan had occupied Korea.

And Shin Bokja's life slowly became a mayhem of pain and misery.

Japanese men burned down her temple and the house of the village head. They turned all the men into 'soldiers' and the prettiest girls into 'comfort women', sexual slaves for the Japanese men who defended their 'motherland'.

Shin Bokja wanted to run away.  
She thought that at least her mind could escape.  
But without a body she couldn't go anywhere.

A drunk soldier attempted to strangle her. It was then that she realized it. If only she was him, if only she had his body, she could go wherever she wanted.

The soldier killed her body but she killed his soul.

She became the inferno.

She became the phoenix.

\---

"Jongin," Chanyeol said and grabbed his arm to pull him up. Something that felt like warmth spread in Kai's chest. He would have felt touched or comforted, had he not known that it was his life energy Chanyeol finally returned tiny bits of. "Don't get lost in that woman's memories."

Chanyeol avoided his eyes again.

Around them the flames slowly diminished.

"She's dying," Chanyeol said.

It had all been part of his plan, that plan he had tried to pull off without letting Kai know until the very last minute.

He took over Kai's body, leaving so little of his soul that he could stay undetected. It was the reverse of what they had been in the beginning. Now Chanyeol was the real person, and Kai was barely more than a memory.

If Kai was still there, the phoenix couldn't steal his body, unless he himself told her his name. And it scared Kai to think that it was maybe for such a reason that Chanyeol didn't make him disappear altogether. Even if the plan wouldn't work, he still had a body to go back to.

Faint screams filled the air, and Kai shivered.

Chanyeol sighed, and put on a weak smile. "I'll go back now," he said. "Let's hope that she doesn't have another trick up her sleeve."

Kai slowly nodded.

"Look, Jongin, I," Chanyeol began and looked down. He then held out his hand, as if he wanted to touch Kai's chest, just the way he had touched the phoenix before he killed her. He seemed to notice that the gesture must have seemed threatening, so he balled a fist and bumped Kai's shoulder. And something exploded.

It was like an energy blast. The moment the manifestations of their souls connected, most of what Chanyeol had quietly stolen, came back in one sudden rush. There were memories and knowledge, and most of all, strength. Immense strength Kai didn't know he had possessed.

Kai finally became whole again.

"I'll make this up to you," Chanyeol said before he jumped.

It felt almost as if they were they way they had used to be. Almost. But there were traces they wouldn't be able to erase, nightmares they wouldn't be able to avoid, doubts they wouldn't be able to shake.

Kai's mind was still quietly burning.

In Chanyeol's there probably wasn't much left but ashes.

He tried to close his eyes to finally sleep, when a tiny flame flared up in front of him. An almost transparent version of the phoenix's real self smiled at him. He was about to put a distance between them, when she put up her hand and shook her head.  
"Oh, please, don't make a fuss," she said in a thin voice. "I don't even know your name, and you don't know mine. I'll disappear even without your doing."

She looked like a ghost carried away by the wind.

And suddenly he felt another doubt. Before Chanyeol had left, she had screamed. Now she seemed calm.

It was almost too easy.

"Did you know this would happen?" he asked, and her smile widened.

"I did consider it to be a possibility, yes," she said. "My ideal setting of course was you killing him, but you wouldn't have done that, would you? You still had a chance when you realized who he really was. You didn't use it."

He frowned. "Did you know that he wouldn't make me disappear?"

It was maybe because he wanted her to tell him that there was another reason for Chanyeol to keep him alive, one in which he wasn't just the safety lock for his body.

She smiled, as if she could read his thoughts.

"You're doubting him," she stated.

He avoided her eyes.

"Do you think he would destroy his anchor?" she then asked.

He snorted. "So I'm an anchor now?"

Maybe that was it. Kai had somehow managed to pull Chanyeol's soul back.  
And if Chanyeol managed to take his body back, he might always need that ability again. If the phoenix was in his Kai's body, Chanyeol would lose an asset.

Kai felt sick, but he couldn't stop thinking that way.

"Oh, my dearest Kai," the phoenix sighed. "You're such a very sweet person, so let me try to ease your mind a little." Her thin hand took his. It felt like being touched by sunlight.

"Park Chanyeol isn't a bad guy," she said and sounded genuine. "I've seen his mind and his memories, so I know. I have of course no recollection of what happened to him after you two met me, but the Park Chanyeol I know wouldn't harm the only friend he can really talk to. He is reckless, yes, but neither stupid, nor a murderer."

She slowly faded away. Her last words sounded like the crackling of a dying fire.

Her grip on his hand tightened.

"But, you see," she said as her eyes disappeared and turned into black hollows. "I'm not stupid either. We all have to die eventually, I understand that, but doesn't everyone want to leave some kind of legacy?"

She chuckled.

He panicked and tried to get away, but she wouldn't let go of him.

"A tiny seed can turn into a magnificent tree, and such a tiny seed is now in Park Chanyeol's mind. He wouldn't hurt you, no, but he will never be able to become the old him again. He's been in this world for too long. One day he will find himself close to death, and he will remember how easy it is to steal a body. He knows that he can live forever if he wants to. That temptation will always be there."

Like a candle that got blown out she turned into smoke, leaving nothing but an faint smell.

Kai looked around, as his world slowly became the way it had used to be.

He was scared.

And suddenly felt lonely.

## phoenix.memento

> \----10.9.8.7.6.5.4.

The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the flimmering darkness in his room. Dim light came from the window, his blanket rustled, everything was at peace.

The first thing he saw after falling asleep was the very same room. He closed his eyes again, when something heavy landed on top of him.

"Did you watch porn or why are you only asleep now?" Chanyeol asked cheerfully, when Kai shoved him off himself.

"What's it to you when I fall asleep?" Kai asked and pulled his blanket over his head.

"Kim Jongin, come one," Chanyeol wailed and tried to pull the blanket away, but no matter how much he pulled, it would just get longer. Chanyeol had no more power in Kai's dream. "You know that you have to be asleep for me to come here."

Kai winced. He hated to be reminded that there had been a time when Chanyeol could freely roam his memories. Chanyeol, the parasite, had seen everything of him, even when he was still conscious. It creeped him out.

But Chanyeol apparently didn't mind.

"If you think it's unfair, you're free to visit me, you know," Chanyeol meekly said. "My mind is really easy to understand, so if you want, you can just get all my nasty secrets in a flash." He snapped his fingers, and Kai sat up. "You have my absolute permission."

"Really," he said dryly. "And you're sure that's not just because you want me to have a look at that bird."

Chanyeol pulled a face. "I mean, it's frankly really annoying. I don't know if it's supposed to be a phoenix or whatever, but it makes the most awful sounds I have ever heard. You should see it."

Kai snorted.

He had actually taken a short look at it before, just to make sure. He had never meant to look at Chanyeol's dreams, because his grandfather had taught him to stay away from people he was close to. But the bird hard worried him, because of the very last words of the phoenix.

The bird, though, was not more than a memento, something that would disappear if Chanyeol just wanted it to. It was the seed.

"I've had it with strange dreams," Kai then finally said, and Chanyeol gave him an apologetic look.

> \----3.2.2.2.error.

Nothing was the way it used to be.

Chanyeol had his body, but seemed even more lost than before.

"The real world stinks," he would say. "It's crowded and noisy and much too warm."

Chanyeol had lived inside dreams for months. His only responsibility had been to stay alive, but now that he was back, none of his survival skills mattered any longer.

"It's lonely without you around," he would say, and Kai wouldn't have admitted it out loud, but sometimes he missed it.

Every time Chanyeol came by, he would leave a small glimmer of his own life energy, no matter how much Kai protested.

"It's all I can do," he would say.

And every time Chanyeol left, Kai would feel like he lost something, even if he knew that they would meet in the real world, even if he knew that Chanyeol would come back anyway.

  
Nothing was the way it used to be, and they would never be able to go back.

But they still had to go on.


End file.
